February 2019
Evangelos Venizelos
Evangelos Venizelos is the president of the social-democratic PASOK party since March 2012. From June 2011 until March 2012, he was Minister of Finance and Vice President of the government. During his tenure as Minister of Finance, the Greek parliament approved the “Medium-term Financial Strategy” (June 2011), which included the implementation of severe austerity measures. Additionally, during the time in which he upheld the same position, the Greek parliament approved the “Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality” (February 12, 2012).
George Alogoskoufis
George Alogoskoufis is a Professor of Economics at the Athens University of Economics and Business since 1990. He was a member of the Hellenic Parliament from September 1996 with the conservative New Democracy party until October 2009 and served as Greece’s Minister of Economy and Finance from March 2004 until January 2009.
Back in 2004, he ordered a fiscal audit, which revealed significant falsification of the Greek deficit statistics by the previous government of PASOK. He openly accused the previous Prime Minister, Costas Simitis (1996 – 2004), of misrepresenting the Greek economy’s statistics and knowingly covering up the extent of the country’s debt. He also claimed that at that same period the fiscal debt had increased dramatically.
Nikos Christodoulakis
Nicos Christodoulakis is Professor of Economic Analysis at the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB) and Research Associate with the Hellenic Observatory at LSE, London. He served as Minister for Economy and Finance of Greece with the social-democratic PASOK party from 2001 to 2004 and chaired the Eurogroup and the ECOFIN in 2003.
Thomas Herndon
A graduate student in economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Thomas Herndon is known for critiquing “Growth in a Time of Debt”, a widely cited academic paper by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff supporting the austerity policies implemented by governments in Europe and North America in the early 21st century. His research in 2013 concluded these measures may not have been necessary.
Herndon proved the Reinhart-Rogoff paper contained multiple errors, provoking widespread international interest and embarrassment for austerity policymakers. The findings have been described as “shocking” and as having rocked the economics world.
Adonis Georgiades
Adonis Georgiades began his career as a TV salesperson that promoted books of nationalist and far-right content while he also hosted the TV show the Rise of the Greeks. In 2007 he entered the Greek parliament with the nationalist Popular Orthodox Rally (LAOS) party. In 2012 he moved into the conservative New Democracy party. He served as Minister for Health from June 2013 until June 2014 and undertook the recent controversial shrinking of the Public Health sector in Greece.
Andrew & Antigone
Andrew and Antigone, both in their 50s, are a couple that lives in one of Attica’s poorest, working-class suburbs, called Perama. Andrew used to be a piper at the well-known “Shipyards of Perama Zone”. Since 2009, they are both chronically unemployed. Due to their inability to repay their mortgages they are in immense risk of losing their house. How are they going to deal with this situation?
Yanis Varoufakis
Yanis Varoufakis is a Professor of Economic Theory at the Department of Business and Finance at the National and Kapodestrian University of Athens. He is an active participant in the current debates on the global and European crisis, the author of The Global Minotaur and a private consultant for Valve Corporation.
Alexis Tsipras
Alexis Tsipras is currently the Leader of the Opposition and the Leader of the Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) in Greece. He was first elected to the Hellenic Parliament in 2009. As Vice-President of the Party of the European Left, he was the nominee for President of the European Commission in the 2014 European Parliament election.
Seraphim Seferiades
Seraphim Seferiades is an Associate Professor of Politics at the Panteion University of Social and Political Science, Athens and Life Member in Politics and History at the University of Cambridge (CLH). His work spans European and Greek labour and social history, contentious politics and social science methodology.
